Plans
by Sky Rat
Summary: Being dead can come with various inconveniences. But hey, it's cool, no problemo. Billy's on it. He always has a plan. Plans don't always pan out as expected. Ectofeature, Billy x Spencer


It wasn't the dying part that was so bad. I'm not sure what I would have expected, if I had ever bothered to think about it, which I hadn't, because hello, I was Billy Joe Cobra and I was going to live forever, right? That's how I thought back in those days, and well, I was kinda right. Just not in the state of um, 'aliveness' I'd planned on hanging around in. I was kinda confused at first when everyone got so upset and no one would explain to me what was going on. Seriously, since when does no one answer BJC when he's talking to them? So uncool. It wasn't until I really stopped to look myself over and noticed the unconventional state of my complexion and uh, opacity, that I started to piece together what had happened. That was kind of a bummer. I was really upset too. For oh, about five minutes. I mean really, dude. You did catch the fact that I was looking at myself, right? I can't stay upset while looking at the stunningly perfectoness of yours truly. Do you feel sad while gazing at works of art? No, I didn't think so. It's like a physical impossibility, or whatever. Never mind that not all the laws of physics still apply to me, that's beside the point.

Anyway, while trying to sort out exactly how I felt about my unexpected change of substantiality, it dawned on me that while my state of being a bit solidity-challenged was kind of inconvenient it also meant that I got to be young and smoking hot forever. Did you catch that? _Forever_. Not such a bad deal really, I totally hit the dead guy lottery. I was never going to have to worry about my career petering out and the tabloids getting pictures of me when I'm all old and out of shape. I mean, not that I was going to let that happen anyway, but my agent sure liked to drop insidious warnings about that sort of thing all the time. And I don't have to listen to him anymore. I don't have to listen to _anyone_ anymore. I get to stick around, still looking and sounding like I did at the height of my career with all of my awesome glory still intact. Well, except for the whole being blue thing, but whatever. I always looked good in blue. I can rock that color better than anyone.

My point being, that when an amazingly talented and stunningly attractive rock star gets cut down in their prime, it makes them a freaking _god_. Suddenly their music seems even better than it did when they were alive (I'm not saying mine had any room for improvement mind you, it's just that people suddenly appreciate it more.) Everyone gets so distraught over the amazing career that they assume you would have had that now they'll be denied from ever hearing. People who'd never even listened to my music (I'm yanking your chain there, of course everyone's heard it, duh) are suddenly all torn up over all those platinum records that will never get made. Society's been robbed! Such a tragedy of un-realized culture. Billy Joe Cobra isn't just a rock star now. He's a _legend_. A goddamned freaking legend.

Awesome, right? Not exactly. All of the described would have been pretty sweet if not for one minor complication. Er, more of a really big obnoxious complication. _No one can freaking see me_. What the hell, right? What's the point of keeping me permanently preserved in my youthful dripping-with-talent perfection if no one in the world has any idea that I'm still here? Is this some kind of cruel joke? It was upon this realization that I started to suspect that maybe me being a ghost wasn't meant to be a reward. I started to ever-so-slightly toy with the idea that maybe, just maybe I was being punished. Wait, no. Me? Being punished? No, that's totally ridiculous, what was I even thinking? Obviously being dead makes you a little paranoid. It's the rest of the world that's clearly being punished. How sad for the other seven billion people on Earth, that I'm still here and they can't see me, huh? Sucks to be you guys.

And while I'm on the topic of not-awesome, I'll also mention that another not-so-awesome thing about being dead is that people keep messing with your stuff. This came as a pretty appalling shock to me. I'd kinda assumed they'd convert my mansion into a shrine for all my weeping groupies to make pilgrimages to and stuff. There were a lot of cards and flowers and sobbing fans of course. It's just that that didn't last. After the memorial service (which wasn't nearly as radtastic as it should have been, they seriously ought to have consulted with me in the planning. Remember kids, if you think you're too young to write a will, think again. I should have made one so that I could have directed that my memorial would have had the respectable quantity of strobe lights and confetti canons. Seriously, services organized by a PR department are _dullsville_. There wasn't a single cake with a hot model inside to pop out of it or anything. Sheesh.) Anyway, I digress. Once the memorial service was over the trickle of remaining weeping groupies just started going to my grave, and the mansion went on the market. With all my stuff still in it and everything! They didn't even pawn my possessions out on eBay for adoring fans to drop a fortune on and subsequently worship. What were they thinking? Those drill bits just left everything there, treating my fabulous mansion and my awesome stuff like a regular house and regular stuff and then handed it all over to _regular_ people to take over and mess around with. So. Uncool.

I was not going to stand for it. I decided to do the only thing any self-respecting specter would do in a situation like this. I was going to haunt the heck out of that mansion until those tools ran for the hills. And I'd do it as many times as I had to until someone with the proper respect for the late great BJC came along. Then maybe I'd let them touch my stuff. Maybe. Only if they had the good sense to wear gloves when touching everything and installed archival quality temperature controlled display cases. You know, reasonable measures for invaluable memorabilia. Good plan, right? It really seemed like it would work. I mean, I've watched movies. No one wants to live in a haunted house, right?

Wrongamundo bromigoes. I may have made a slight miscalculation in my brilliant plan. And by 'slight miscalculation' I mean that it never really crossed my mind that there would be people out there so weird that they'd like being haunted. And by 'like it' what I really mean was that they flippin' _loved_ it. What kind of freaks are these people? I really tried too. I started with the obvious small stuff of course. Moving random objects around. Spontaneously flickering the lights on and off. The Wrights just laughed it off and attributed it to having inherited their property from an eccentric celebrity. "Must be an atmospheric party feature," Hugh Wright would say after a particularly spastic blackout. And hiding his keys would just lead to, "Great! Now I have an excuse to test out my new solar powered metal detector!" Is he for real? And it's not like Jane Wright is any better. I've lost count of how many times I've cleaned out all the baked goods she leaves lying around and she doesn't even blink! She just makes more! Okay, okay, I'm not really complaining about that. Her baked goods are spiffylicious. I just think it's weird that she doesn't mind, is all I'm saying.

And while I'm on the topic of weird, I have to say that the mondo bizarro gold metal goes to their kid Spencer. The Spencemiester was the real guilty party when it came to messing around with my things. He really forced me to draw a line so I kicked things up a notch and went from mere poltergeist shenanigans to a hardcore stuff-nightmares-are-made-of-better-call-the-ghost-busters-or-you'll-never-sleep-again grade haunting. I'm talking about juggling meat cleavers over his bed and stuff. I mean, really, who can see something like that and not run away crying? Spencer, apparently. Not only was he totally not freaked, the weirdo had the nerve to pull out a flippin' video camera and start _filming_ it. What the ding-dong-diddly-hell. Are you kidding me?

Okay, confession time. I maybe sort of liked getting filmed again. I mean, the fact that I wasn't actually showing up on the camera wasn't exactly ideal, but hey, beggars can't be choosers. I was getting a little bit starved for attention here. Guys like me just can't go that long without it. It's like, as important as air and food. And considering that I no longer actually need air and food, the attention part of my diet just becomes all the more essential. I've been denied major sustenance! I was getting so desperate I might have had one foot on the crazy train myself for a while there.

When's Spencer's interfering with my stuff escalated into wearing my stuff, someone was finally successfully scared. And (repeat this to another soul and die) it might not have actually been Spencer. It might have, you know, been the other guy in the room. Hey, look, I got sort of used to being invisible okay? It's kind of a buzzkill to be really absorbed in a totally brodacious air guitar solo only to turn around and have Mr. Freaky-Deaky all staring at you agape and obviously _seeing you_. I might have screamed a little (it was a totally macho scream, for the record.) That at least made him jump. Ha! Sucker.

Being seen again is a complete game changer though. Sure, Spencer might not have been my first choice for my new BBF (that's Best Bro Forever for all you laybros,) but I could have done shabbier too. I might have opted for someone with a slightly more expansive appreciation for my discography, for example. It's kind of lamesauce that I was finally visible to someone and out of all the people to be rewarded with my coveted reappearance that honor had to fall on some dude with zilch appreciation for quality music. On the other hand though (again, repeat this and die) I sort of maybe found the majority of my fans just a smidge on the boring side. Don't get me wrong, I _love_ having fans. I love having fans almost as much as I love _me_. That's a lot of love there, let me tell you. It's just that all my fans ever had to talk about was me. And that's pretty rad and all, I sure do love hearing people talk about me. But I'm already sort of the leading expert on the topic so the conversations get a bit samey after a while.

Yeah, so saying that I'm tired of having conversations strictly about myself is obviously a bit extreme, don't misinterpret. I'm just explaining that it's also kind of nice that Spencer likes to talk to me about other stuff too. That's kind of unique, and so I guess it's kind of okay that he's not a huge fan because he's actually my friend now. I know what you're thinking, 'big deal,' right? Well, confession number two: I sort of didn't actually have any friends when I was still alive. Dude, bro, don't look at me like that! It's not my fault! I was on the road a lot, you know? And always surrounded by managers and groupies. Plus, being a superstar keeps you _really busy_. You try maintaining a social life under those conditions! Not as easy as you think, huh? Yeah, that's what I thought. Anyway, all I'm saying is that having a live-in BBF is pretty sweet. Totally one of the highlights of being dead.

So, even though Spencer is not a drop-dead gorgeous honey with a massive appreciation for my stardom, I still rather dig the way things turned out. Enough to forgive the Wrights for moving in and cramping my style even. In fact, I'd go so far even to say that things were going smoother than a peanut butter smoothie for a while. Yeah, note the 'a while' part. I've sort of run into another one of those inconvenient complications.

See, here's the problemo. Lately I've noticed Spence has been acting kind of weird. I mean weird for Spencer of course. 'Normal Spence' is pretty weird by everyone else's standards (which I find hilarious, trust me,) so this makes his current change of behavior more on the mega-weird end of the spectrum. How is he acting weird? Well, I keep catching him staring at me. And not in a brotastic way, either. I keep catching him staring at me in more of that I-want-to-jump-you way that my fans often had plastered on their faces. And hey, it's cool, I'm used to that and all. I'm even used to getting looks like that from guys. Really, it's pretty unavoidable when you're as amazingly awesome as I am. Dudes just can't help themselves. It's only weird because this is _Spence_ we're talking about. And until now Spence has been completely immune to my banging charm. It's out of character, you know? And Spence is a freaking cinematographer (sorta.) If anyone knows about staying in character, it's him. This is kind of worrisome.

I conclude it must be hormones or something. I remember what those were like. Eugh. Another highlight of being dead you know, not having to deal with being overrun by that insane crap. It's totally brain addling. Really, I feel sorry for the living; being alive is roughsville. I totally feel for my bromie. Poor guy. I want to help him out.

But how to go about doing that, huh? Tough question. My first idea is a pretty obvious one. Spence needs a girlfriend. That would fix him up in a jiffy. It seems like a really good idea, yeah? Infallible.

Except.

Except for some reason it just doesn't sit all that right with me. I can't figure out why not. I just don't like it. Probably because none of Spencer's friends are A-listers. Heck, they don't even make the B-list. I can't go setting my BBF up with some lame-o potato bottom-tier fugly lady. Oh hell no. That's just not gonna fly. He's too good for that. And as we've already discovered through that whole Shorty Award fiasco, Beverly Heights seems to have a real shortage of A-listers (probably because they don't know BJC is still in town—there's no reason for them to hang around.) So, apparently getting Spence a girlfriend is a no-can-do. There just aren't any viable options. On to plan two then I guess.

Plan two involves a bit of self-sacrifice from his bestest-bro, but hey, that's just the kind of awesome guy I am. I'm pretty sure that whatever's wrong with his hormone-addled brain just needs to be gotten out of his system. Then he'll snap out of it and things can go back to normal and we can proceed with chillaxing and making horror movies and eating peanut butter. You know, the really important stuff that's been getting all off-kilter lately from Spencer's weirdness. I don't mind taking one for the team if it means getting my brometheus back. Right? Obviously.

Okay, so that's the plan, I'm gonna kiss Spencer. Good plan. Totally excellent plan. I should probably run this plan by Spence first. But dude, he loves horror movies. That means he digs surprises, right? I'm totally gonna surprise him.

So I wait until he's good and busy. He's making this diorama, see? It's a miniature graveyard that he's going to splice into the background of one of his flicks. He's been making tiny little tombstones out of Papier Mâché. They actually look pretty awesome, not that I'm in the habit of complimenting people other than me, but I'm in an honest mood and hey, they totally do. He's really absorbed in it, all concentrating on painting the inscriptions on the stones and stuff.

"Hey Billy," he says, not turning around. "Can you hand me another tube of paint?"

It's real proof of my nerves of steel that I'm able to resist snickering right now. I can think of so many innuendos to that. So. Many. But no, that would make Spence suspicious. Can't ruin the surprise.

"Sure," I say.

I tap him on the shoulder. He turns around.

And _BAM_! Plan in action!

Spencer is pretty surprised.

Problem, though: so am I.

Hm.

Yeah, hm.

My carefully thought out plan had involved getting this done neat and fast and then moving on. My plan had involved me sucking it up to do Spencer a favor. My plan had definitely not involved me enjoying it. My plan is not exactly going as planned. Hm.

Maybe I just think I'm enjoying it. It has been a while since I've done this with anyone. Like, a long while, come to think of it, not since I was still alive and all. Maybe it's just the fact that I'm kissing anyone that's turning me on (I didn't even know ghosts could still get turned on. This is interesting, very interesting, definitely have to explore that.) It might not be because of Spencer specifically. I should run a test to sort that out.

So I do the logical thing and stick my tongue down his throat. I mean, really, who wouldn't? How else am I supposed to figure out if I've got a thing for my bro? Spencer's really stiff (and not in the good way, if you know what I mean. Yeah, you were thinking that, don't pretend you weren't.) That's kind of bruising my ego a bit, honestly. I'm used to people melting in my hands like putty. Why isn't Spence melting? Am I that out of practice?

I try biting his lip instead and yeah, that gets me a reaction.

He shoves me off.

Not really my first choice of reaction.

"Dude!" Spence seems to be having a hard time articulating. He flails adorably. (Oh snap, I did not just use that word to describe Spencer. What the heck is wrong with me?)

"Dude!" He shrieks again. "What the hell was that?!"

I shrug.

"No seriously!" He yells at me. "What _was_ that?"

"You had peanut butter on your face?" I try to look innocent.

"Nice try." He sets his paintbrush down and crosses his arms. "I haven't had any in days." His eyes narrow. "But I would believe that you were trying to excavate some from my stomach, at the rate you were going."

I shrug again. Not sure why I'm having such a hard time whipping up an excuse. I'm usually supremo at wriggling out of awkward situations. This is definitely awkward. I'm kinda distracted though. I sort of can't stop staring at him.

"Billy." His tone is warning.

"Geeze, I don't know why you're getting so worked up. I was just doing you a favor, sheesh."

"A favor," he says flatly.

"Yeah," I say. "You've been looking tense lately. Thought I'd, you know, un-tense-ify you a bit."

"By sucking off my face?"

"I prefer to call it the Billy Joe Special."

Spencer crosses his arms over his chest. "You're unbelievable."

"—ly awesome?"

"Not what I was going to say."

"Then obviously I messed up somehow. You should let me give you a do-over to fix that, brochatcho."

"Um." Spencer blushes.

Ha! I knew he digs me.

Oh yeah. The Spencemiester is majorly digging the B-man. I totally haven't lost it. Wait. Wait wait wait. Hang on a sec. This wasn't my plan. My plan was to make him get over me so things could get on the fast track back to normal. This isn't normal. What am I doing?

We stare at each other awkwardly.

"Um," Spencer just says again.

"Take two?" I try again. And hey, I'm serious. I'm majorly confused here. How am I supposed to sort out exactly where my plan backfired if he doesn't let me finish my experiment?

"Ha ha." Spence is looking at me suspiciously. "Very funny. C'mon bro, don't mess around with me."

"Does this face look like it's capable of messing with you?"

"Uh, yep." Spence rolls his eyes.

"Well I'm _not_." I solemnly hold up a hand. "Scout's honor."

"You were never in scouts."

"I played one in a TV special once."

He sighs and rolls his eyes again. But then his eyes slide towards the door. Which is unlocked. Ah, I see where he's going with that. Should have thought of it before. I'm on it. I float over and lock the door. Then I shove a chair in front of it, just for good measure.

Spencer's blushing again. I like this development.

"Soooo," I say, floating back to him. "Whatcha say for another go? That was fun right? And no biggie. I mean, seriously. What's a little making out between bros?"

"I'm pretty sure that's against the bro code."

"Nuh uh. It's definitely allowed. I _wrote_ the bro code."

Spencer doesn't say anything. He's staring at my mouth. I try to look sexy. For some reason he starts laughing. Dude, that's not cool.

...Or maybe it is, because next he's saying, "Yeah. Um, okay. Maybe. I guess we could try that. Just...just as bros, of course."

Score!

I go in for the kill. He stops me again.

"Don't accidently turn me into a ghost," he warns.

"I won't," I promise. "I'll be like, _so careful_."

And I am too. Impeccably. Spence certainly doesn't complain.

Well, Billy Joe Cobras's signing out for now. I'd love to chat some more, but I'm uh, gonna be busy for a while. Probably a long while, heh. Eh heh heh. I just wanted to say this: Being dead? Totally not so bad. At least, not when you have an awesome brofriend, like I do. And that whole 'normal' thing I was worrying about... Definitely overrated. Like, big time.


End file.
